Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 204

For this week’s prompt, write a resolved poem. The poem can list new year resolutions, show a person resolved to do something, or any other unique angle you resolve to write.

Here’s my attempt at a Resolved Poem:

“Here We Go”

Another year, another list
of promises to myself from
myself. Write more and quit eating
too much. Run more than every
so often. Save money and pay
attention to the internal
voice I usually ignore,
though it’s nearly always correct.
Here we go. The first step a trip.

You might also like:

75 thoughts on “Wednesday Poetry Prompts: 204”

This year
I resolve to
eat my weight in chocolate and gummies,
empty the clip of my favorite air soft on
my neighbor’s marauding peacocks more often,
and stop habitually poking my poor Rott
in the eye when doling out free facials.

This year
I aspire to
wax poetic on my new porch glider,
learn to edit and burn video with gusto,
and take that well earned vacation to
Hades hotbed, Craters of the Moon.

This year
I promise to
get around to decluttering the place,
pruning the fruit trees, and reclaiming my
outdoor living space so that the mailman
can find the path to my front door once more
when the checks finally start rolling in.

— Happy belated New Year to all, trying to get this year off to a poetic start since not having written much for a while now, —-

Don’t Drop The Ball

“I will confine my dreams
to their restless place, Sleep.”

all the little lights,
bulbs flashing the ideas,
the dangers of emitting
diodes,like suffocating stars
a-blinking from an almost
asphyxiation – holding my breath
inebriated those last seconds,

pride scoffed superstition,
toasted the cheers unbelieving,
if we are cursed to spend more
time partying so be it – these
midnight hours to come – we have
already resolved to do so, making
and keeping resolutions – the easy half,

A resolved poem
A new year is here but my resolves are not clear
I yen for many things but many things yen not for me
I have little to say on this forth new years day
No pretty mellifluous words to speak, write, or say

No resolutions shall I claim, I’ve yet to make a one
That I did not break within a few new years days
A few perhaps have lasted a month or so
But always get undermined by old lazy ways

There is one resolve though that I am thinking of this day
A coming to terms if you will perhaps is a batter way to say
A writer I am not I must honestly say but I hope to resolve this a little each day
This writing thing I hate to say is not as easy as some have claimed.

But I resolve to not give up and write a little every day
inch by inch I’ve heard it said this makes it a synch
but yard by yard they say that makes it hard
so my resolve as I close this poem
is to write a little with each new day
and that is all I can say on this forth new years day.

Resolved 101 –
Each year a new page, a new
Start
Only the start always falters
Last years resolution lies in empty
Vaults unfinished,
Echoes of years past this year,
Doubts of future so I solve nothing – again.

List trifling and doable deeds
to boost your sense of possibility.
Not outcomes, like clean the house,
but dust a chair, then dust another one.

Don’t hanker after saving the world.
Save pocket change, save your errands
for once a week, save a friend from drowning.

List what you do already. That stuff gets done.
Build in quiet time, a nap, a book,
an hour to write, a glass of wine,
a cat on your lap, a talk with a friend
who makes you laugh, who forgives you
for being yourself.

Make music, play games,
cry when you need to,
curse inventively,
have adventures,
bring order to something,
love somebody.
Be true.

not so quiet riot in my head
says write right,
as much as you can.
another channel screams
there’s so much
more important stuff to do.
riot, rumbles, screams
let it be: who cares besides you?
continue, continue,
get the words down.

words don’t care if you suffer frowns.
sit down there right now,
reach long
for accomplishment’s crown.

I am in need of a revolution
As it is the New Year
And I have now resolutions!
I am either happy with my life as it is
Or I have given up
Too defeated to hope for something better
Too scared to even try
Maybe next year!

I yearn for more than resolution—conflict over, win or lose.
Instead, by year’s end, I long for denouement, threads
of my life unraveled, each strand untangled, unknotted,
smooth as the hair on a brand-new Barbie doll.

In my year’s plot, pitting man—or woman—versus man,
nature, fate, the gods, the machine or—most likely,
versus self, I hope not merely for any resolution,
but happy resolution, the little angel on one shoulder
knocking the little devil clean off the other,
silencing his foolish talk once and for all.

I yearn for more than resolution—conflict over, win or lose.
Instead, by year’s end, I long for denouement, threads
of my life unraveled, each strand untangled, unknotted,
smooth as the hair on a brand-new Barbie doll.

In my year’s plot, pitting man—or woman—versus man,
nature, fate, the gods, the machine or—most likely,
versus self, I hope not merely for any resolution,
but happy resolution, the little angel on one shoulder
knocking the little devil clean off the other,
silencing his foolish talk once and for all.

Where is he going,
on this odd vehicle?
Smudge-cheek
boys shout “boneshaker!” as
he whizzes by far
faster than
the man in top
hat and frock coat
rapping sidewalk
with his umbrella – but
who cares for rain,
when one
propels himself
on wind and pedal
power, faster than the
hansom he
passes as the driver
curses and the horses
shy. So
strange this animal that
skims the ground without
lifting a
hoof, a sort of
metal-flesh alloy centaur
with a
pulled-down cap. And
in that man-shaped head,
what thoughts,
this bright uncertain morning?
Where is he speeding
as if
impatient for his future,
as if resolved to
propel himself
into his fleeting life?

Usually I resolve not to resolve,
hating the gravel pit of failure,
the scattered, broken bits
of promises made to myself
then left to the elements to
crumble in the company of
other broken bits of promises
made to myself.
So this year, again,
I resolve not to resolve,
but simply to gaze
more outwardly than inward,
to breathe deeply
in the cold or the heat,
to celebrate this body
with its (mostly) working parts,
to treat myself as kindly
as I treat others.
In other words,
this year I choose
to live.

Some exist for mood,
Others for status,
One moves a body up
To heights demanded below.
A problem’s fixer has no
Need for explanation,
But comes from itself—
An opposite of its target,
Regardless of restriction.
To resolve is to solve again,
Which tells me fixers are
Only temporary at best.

I bring my game
along with this name
I’ve inherited and honed.
Determined to use this time given
to be driven to success,
and this mess of a muse
will refuse to falter.
Standing tall with all
who aspire to poem,
I’ve shown them and have nothing
to prove; my grove is never my rut..
With a glut of words yet to use
I will choose them wisely
and be surprised by my resolve
to solve the puzzle.
I am grounded.
I am steeled.
I am resolute.

UPCOMING BOOT CAMP

Sign up now to learn how to get a literary agent’s attention through a great submission and work with an agent online to review and refine your all-important query letter and the first five pages of your novel.